Progress...of sorts

Hello everyone :)

All sorts of interesting progress in the background. Nothing with pictures yet though.

Firstly, Laura Sathur Ulak from http://theeleonoraproject.wordpress.com/ and I have been discussing jewellery, fabric and buttons quite extensively. It turns out that there is a company in the UK that can make reproduction fabrics. So we are getting a test sample made to see if the colours etc are OK and to see how much it costs. I am still plowing ahead with my hand made fabric though. So if you have a burning desire to get your hands on some reproduction fabric head on over The Eleanora Club on facebook to keep up to date with progress....because you all know by now how bad I am with updates.

We are also waiting on design drawings from a pewter caster who is working on the girdle and necklace for us. Again, hoping its not going to be too expensive lol.

And my life has been more or less consumed by buttons. I have been talking to a 3D printer who is going to print my button prototypes for me. I just need to clarify exactly what I want, which means studying every button visible on the portrait and working out how they will look in 3D and then drawing it. Slow progress, but will be worth the wait. After I have the prototypes, I will be making/having moulds made to cast the buttons in metal.

I have had a friend take some good quality pictures of sections of the dress and also the inside as people have asked me how bits have been done. So keep watching this space and I'll post them here and on The Eleanora Club fb page.

Other than that, I have finished a blue dress based on the Eleanora burial dress pattern from Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion for The Realm of Venus Second Italian Renaissance Costume Challenge. The dress needs some modifications, but generally fits quite well (apart from a little bit of expansion on my part lol).

I have also whipped up a little 1920's number for a friends Cabaret Theatre night at The Ellington - if you are in Melbourne, watch out for 'A Saucy Little Secret' coming to a venue soon. Or check out HMS Popup Productions to see whats going on.

What else....two steampunk coats for a friend, a bustle dress and a 1929 gown are also in progress.

See, I have been far too busy to write blog updates, I have been busy sewing lol

More pictures next time...promise x